SIXTEEN WORDS FOR WATER (A Play about Ezra Pound)
By Billy Marshall Stoneking (Published by Harper/Collins, Australia, 1991)
SAMPLE REVIEWS
Excerpts from Preview:
Sixteen Words for Water, adapted for radio from Billy Marshall-Stoneking's acclaimed stage play, tells the story of the modernist poet Ezra Pound. Pound, an American citizen, made broadcasts on Italian radio during the Second World War. In 1943 he was arrested by the American authorities and indicted on a charge of treason. In order to escape the death penalty which this charge carried, his friends persuaded him to plead insanity. The court upheld this plea, but instead of releasing Pound, the court confined him for 13 years to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C., an institution that housed the criminally insane.
Using Billy Marshall-Stoneking's powerful and poetic text, the original words of Pound's wartime broadcasts, and the music of George Antheil and Steve Adam, the play explores twentieth century politics, language, and the definition of the self.
Excerpt from Time Out:
Theatre
Billy Marshall-Stoneking's play, 'Sixteen Words for Water' is a literary and poetic tour de force. It follows the poet Ezra Pound, who was persuaded to plead insanity to escape the death penalty when charged with treason on his return to the US after World War II. … Stoneking's play charts the poet's obsessive idealism through the exploration of his relationship with two women: a Justice Department psychiatrist and Betsy, a strange young woman who visits him. The play is the closest thing to Shakespeare we have yet seen from a modern-day playwright and is not to be missed. Presented by the Celtic Mouse Theatre Company, the play stars Vincent McCabe as Ezra Pound, with Gail Fitzpatrick as the psychiatrist and Laura Brennan as Betsy. Until Apr 29, Tue-Sun 8pm, Crypt Arts Centre, Dublin Castle, D2 (353 1 6713387)
BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING
From 24 Hours:
Poet and dramatist Billy Marshall-Stoneking is among the most powerful voices in contemporary Australian writing. His play Sixteen Words for Water has been a major success in Australian literary theatre, and another new short play,
Baby, is Radio National's Box Seat Wednesday Play this week.